We should be pissed about the Manchin/Toomey/Durbin/Kirk firearms background check and anti-trafficking law not being able to break the 60 vote threshold to get debate on the senate. Yes, yes, fuck Begich, Pryor, Heitkamp and Baucus. The traitors! The liars. Online satirists, commence anger barely veiled in snark. When Obama gets mad, it’s okay to be angry black man, at least for the next few days when not at work or the dinner table.

We should ease our righteous indignation for these “party traitors” maybe tomorrow or next week. Next time this bill is up, maybe they will vote yes for debate. Maybe they will support a progressive initiative like immigration reform. or health care. or VAWA. or “the gheys” getting married in two tuxes or two wedding dresses. So don’t carry it too long. No matter what we all like to think, George W. Bush passed much of his agenda with Senate Democrats in tow and Obama has had to a lot of fixing and a lot more with Republican obstruction to legislation, federal appointee nominees and state of the union addresses. Add in 4 Democrats and you still don’t get to 60 votes needed to get a bill to the Senate floor for debate. This is a story about 42 Republicans. Harry Reid whipped his side of the aisle. Pat Toomey couldn’t whip his. In addition, this bill wasn’t passing Speaker Boehner’s Republican controlled house. Parties should routinely leak support on certain issues, but an issue backed by 90% of Americans should be able to be debated by the US Senate.

We should be calming down with all this calling senators who voted yes on the gun control bill heroes. Manchin, Toomey and these others didn’t stick their necks out too far. Some 90% of Americans support the measures in this bill. On Morning Joe they were being feted as heroes, Toomey is a statewide Republican in PA a very purple state when it comes to statewide politics. PA has literally flip-flopped Dem and Republican two term governors for decades, have a firmly Republican state legislature, but as a state have supported the Democratic presidential candidate since Reagan. We also have an electorate that supports additional weapons control measures. West Virginia’s Manchin, who took the lead on this issue was formerly an A politician with the NRA. Senator Manchin also famously shot the cap and trade bill in commercials to the delight of the extremely undelightful Evan Bayh and seems to make his political fortune by openly opposing his party’s president almost every chance he gets. His right of center credentials are firmly in place and he properly framed this debate as: vote for my bill or terrorists win. It’s just good old fashioned legislating. It’s literally their job.

We should be thankful that the Newtown families, Cleopatra and Nathaniel Pendleton, Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly and their fellow Arizonans are being so courageous in their public advocacy and activism. Newtown is an idyllic Connecticut town and the elementary school seemed like a perfect environment . A place many of our friends who are parents would love to raise a family. The Pendletons are a photogenic family whose late teenage daughter Hidiya was popular and outgoing evidenced by her performance at inauguration and the eulogies demanded by her mother by her large group of best friends. Gabby Giffords was a Blue Dog Democratic US Rep who met her constituency often and her husband Mark Kelly an astronaut. But they still are public descendants of the activist born of grief like that of Emmitt Till’s mother Mamie Carthon. In Philadelphia, like Hidiya Pendleton’s Chicago has been murder capital many times in recent years. There are a lot of small schools in nice districts where your tax money pays for a hell of an education in safe environment like Newtown. We have a lot of law and order go getter Democrats who are retail politicians like Gabby Giffords.

We should be finding ways to demand some perspective from our news orgs. Boston Marathon bombing is definitely national news. It’s really close to national news. But so is the West, Texas Fertilizer Plant explosion. Not only because upwards of 70 people could be dead, but because it’s an example of how such seemingly benign operations can go wrong. Ruined tap water from fracking, nuclear waste or coal ash containment issues, spills from oil rigs, pipelines and ships, bridges that are collapsing and contaminated food and medicine.While CNN, Fox News, the AP and the New York Post are declaring the case closed or falsely accusing random brown teenagers who were also victims of the terrorists who attacked the marathon, this has broken to the national scene as a story of horrific spectacle. Barring malicous intent it seems to be a story of corporate negligence combined with: a failure of adequate government oversight and penalty.

We should really be finding some way to stop all this segregated prom sh*t. really. really.

We should really not know or care that Jonathan Papelbon, closer for my Philadelphia Phillies is an idiot when it comes to politics. He is an idiot in general, but he has full right to be an idiot about politics and not be ridiculed. Many Republican Senators and voters agree with his view of Obama wanting to take all of our guns.